How do human brains inform “thinking” machines
Thomas Parr
PhD, co-author of Active Inference
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Season 4 Episode 16
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Active inference is a “first principles” approach to understanding behavior and the brain, framed in terms of a single imperative to minimize free energy. The free energy principle describes systems that pursue paths of least surprise, minimizing the difference between predictions based on their model of the world and their sense and associated perception.
Dr. Thomas Parr is a practicing clinician and prominent researcher in the field of theoretical neuroscience and he currently works as an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow in Neurology at the University of Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences. He is also a co-author of Active Inference: The Free Energy Principle in Mind, Brain, and Behavior, written in collaboration with Giovanni Pezzulo and Karl J. Friston.
Thomas joins Robb and Josh for a probing discussion of how the active inference and free energy in our own brains relate to the evolution of “thinking” machines.
About the guest
Thomas Parr is a theoretical neurobiologist and practising physician. He completed his undergraduate medical studies and PhD at University College London, where he worked with Professor Karl Friston at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology. He authored the first comprehensive textbook Active Inference: The Free Energy Principle in Mind, Brain, and Behavior (co-written with Giovanni Pezzulo and Karl J. Friston) on Active Inference—an approach to understanding brain and behaviour from first principles. Thomas is interested in how our brains model our environments, and how these models become dysfunctional in neurological disease. He currently works as an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow in Neurology at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford.
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